GUI-SIDER: a scenario-based interaction design environment for GUI dialogue

This paper proposes a design method for the dialogue part of GUI applications. The dialogue part describes sequences of interactions in the use of an application program. As the use procedures become more complex, it becomes harder to design dialogue with simple state transition models. We specify requirements for the dialogue component as a collection of individual interaction sequences. Each user-application interaction sequence (or service scenario) is modeled as communication, among GUI elements and users. We adopt the message sequence chart (MSC) for scenario notation. This design environment, called GUI-SIDER has been implemented in an X11/Motif environment. In this design environment, program code as automatically generated from a set of scenarios. In an evaluation that involved developing a sample GUI application, GUI-SIDER reduced initial development time by 20%; and modification time by 40%